Rover Wiki
Welcome to the Rover Wiki This is the wiki for the car brand Rover which has unfortunately ceased trading. - Wiki by 5c0r910n Some content taken from Wikipedia.org. + Feel free to edit! List of products (see nav. bar for pages) Rover # 1904–12 Rover 8 # 1906–10 Rover 6 # 1906–10 Rover 16 # 1906–10 Rover 10 # 1912–23 Rover 12 # 1919–25 Rover 8 # 1924–27 Rover 9 # 1924–27 Rover 20 # 1925–27 Rover 14 # 1925–27 Rover 48 # 1927–32 Rover Light Six # 1927–47 Rover 10 # 1929–32 Rover 2-Litre # 1930–34 Rover Meteor 16HP # 1930–34 Rover Meteor 20HP # 1931–40 Rover Speed 20 # 1932–33 Rover Pilot # 1933–33 Rover Speed Pilot # 1932–32 Rover Scarab # 1934–47 Rover 12 # 1934–47 Rover 14 # 1934–47 Rover Speed 14 # 1937–47 Rover 16 # 1947–48 Rover 12 Sports Tourer # 1948–present Land Rover appears # 1948–49 Rover P3 (60/75) # 1949–64 Rover P4 (60/75/80/90/95/100/105/110) # 1958–73 Rover P5 (3-Litre/3.5-Litre) # 1963–76 Rover P6 (2000/2200/3500) Land Rover # 1948-1958 Land Rover Series 1 # 1958-1961 Land Rover Series 2 # 1961-1971 Land Rover Series 2A # 1970-present Range Rover # 1971-1985 Land Rover Series 3 # 1983-2015 Land Rover Defender # 1989-1998 Land Rover Discovery # 1997-2006 Land Rover Freelander # 1998-2004 Land Rover Discovery 2 # 2003-2010 Land Rover Discovery 3 # 2005-present Range Rover Sport # 2006-2014 Land Rover Freelander 2 # 2010-present Land Rover Discovery 4 # 2011-present Range Rover Evoque Austin (Metro) # 1980-90 Austin Metro (Later Rover Metro, Rover 100) MG (When Rover shared designs with MG & later.) Roewe History The Rover Company is a former British car manufacturing company founded as Starley & Sutton Co. of Coventry in 1878. It is now owned by SAIC (renamed Roewe) along with MG, and is the direct ancestor of the present day Land Rover company, which is a subsidiary of Jaguar Land Rover, in turn owned by the Tata Group. The company traded as Rover, manufacturing cars between 1904 and 1967, when it was sold to Leyland Motor Corporation, becoming the Rover marque. The Rover marque was used on cars produced by British Leyland (BL), who separated the assets of the original Rover Company as Land Rover in 1978 whilst the Rover trademark continued to be used on vehicles produced by its successor companies – the Austin Rover Group (1982–1986), the Rover Group(1986–2000), and then finally MG Rover (2000–2005). Following MG Rover's collapse in 2005, the Rover marque became dormant, and was subsequently sold to Ford, by now the owners of Land Rover, a move which effectively reunited the Rover trademark with the original company. After developing the template for the modern bicycle with its Rover Safety Bicycle of 1885, the company moved into the automotive industry. It started building motorcycles and Rover cars, using their established marque with the iconic Viking Longship, from 1904 onwards. Land Rover vehicles were added from 1948 onwards, with all production moving to the Solihull plant after World War II. Before Cars The first Rover was a tricycle manufactured by Starley & Sutton Co. of Coventry, England, in 1883. The company was founded by John Kemp Starley and William Sutton in 1878. Starley had previously worked with his uncle, James Starley (father of the cycle trade), who began by manufacturing sewing machines and switched to bicycles in 1869. In the early 1880s, the cycles available were the relatively dangerous penny-farthings and high-wheel tricycles. J.K. Starley made history in 1885 by producing the Rover Safety Bicycle - a rear-wheel-drive, chain-driven cycle with two similar-sized wheels, making it more stable than the previous high-wheel designs. Cycling Magazine said the Rover had "set the pattern to the world"; the phrase was used in their advertising for many years. Starley's Rover is usually described by historians as the first recognisably modern bicycle. The words for "bicycle" in Polish (Rower) and Belarusian (Rovar, Ро́вар) are derived from the name of the company. The word ровер is also used in many parts of Western Ukraine. In 1889, the company became J.K. Starley & Co. Ltd., and in the late 1890s, the Rover Cycle Company Ltd. Motorcycles In 1899 John Starley imported some of the early Peugeot motorcycles from France in for experimental development. His first project was to fit an engine to one of his Rover bicycles. Starley died early in October 1901 aged 46 and the business was taken over by entrepreneur H. J. Lawson. The company developed and produced the Rover Imperial motorcycle in November 1902. This was a 3.5 hp diamond-framed motorcycle with the engine in the centre and 'springer' front forks which was ahead of its time.2 This first Rover motorcycle had innovative features such as a spray carburettor, bottom-bracket engine and mechanically operated valves. With a strong frame with double front down tubes and a good quality finish, over a thousand Rover motorcycles were sold in 1904. The following year, however, Rover stopped motorcycle production to concentrate on their 'safety bicycle' but in 1910 designer John Greenwood was commissioned to develop a new 3.5 hp 500 cc engine with spring-loaded tappets, a Bosch magneto and an innovative inverted tooth drive chain. It had a Brown and Barlow carburettor and Druid spring forks. This new model was launched at the 1910 Olympia show and over 500 were sold. In 1913 a 'TT' model was launched with a shorter wheelbase and sports handlebars. The 'works team' of Dudley Noble and Chris Newsome had some success and won the works team award.2 1920 Rover 500 cc Rover supplied 499 cc single cylinder motorcycles to the Russian Army during the First World War.2 The company began to focus on car production at the end of the war, but Rover still produced motorcycles with 248 cc and 348 cc Rover overhead valve engines and with J.A.P. engines, including a 676 cc V-twin.3 In 1924 Rover introduced a new lightweight 250cc motorcycle with unit construction of engine and gearbox. This had lights front and rear as well as a new design of internal expanding brakes.2 Poor sales of their motorcycles caused Rover to end motorcycle production and concentrate solely on the production of motor cars. Between 1903 and 1924 Rover had produced more than 10,000 motorcycles. Links Land Rover - landrover.co.uk SAIC - Category:Browse